Deep research in the digital world plain version

Teaching and Learning forum 2013

Much of this information is not accessible to many

general search engines’ software spiders, so we

need to use specific search tools to lead us to this

hidden information.

The challenge to is find what you want, not what

Google thinks you want.

• Be clear about what you are looking for! This

part of deep research process requires deep

thinking!• Decide what the question is

• Be as specific as you can

• Be prepared to revisit this part often

• Use thinking tools like mind maps to clarify your

search request

These include specialised search engines,

directories and portals and gateways, databases,

digital libraries and Web 2.0 spaces such as wikis,

blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and topic

aggregators – ScoopiT, Delicious, etc.

Meta search engines combine two or more search

engines enabling a simultaneous search

• PolyCola: http://www.polycola.com/ - allows you to

search any two major search engines simultaneously.

• Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com/ - searches four top

search engines simultaneously.

• Mamma: http://www.mamma.com/ - the mother of all

search engines

Google: http://www.google.com

• The Google generation “squirrel” away information.

• There is very little critical evaluation of what is stored.

• It is claimed searching using Google will only provide 30% of internet

content.

• Remember that Google is a business.

• Google has software to supply what it determines you want based on your

previous searches: good or bad?

TryGoogle Scholar: http://scholar.google.com.au/schhp?hl=en

Google Books: http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en

Exalead: www.exalead.com/search

Yippy: www.yippy.com.com – formerly Clusty

Yahoo!: http://au.yahoo.com/

Directories list websites by category and

subcategory. This makes them great for browsing,

just like you would in a bookshop.

Directories are smaller than search engines but

information is more relevant and grouped together.

• Infomine: http://infomine.ucr.edu/

• Yahoo!Directory: http://au.dir.yahoo.com/

• Open Directory: http://www.dmoz.org/

• WWW Virtual Library: http://vlib.org/

• Internet Public Library: http://www.ipl.org/

• Best of the web: http://botw.org

• Galaxy: http://www.galaxy.com

A digital library is a library where collections are stored in digital formats, not print or other media.

Some examples include:• National Science Digital Library: http://nsdl.org/

• National Library of Australia digital collections: http://www.nla.gov.au/digicoll/

• Australian pictures in Trove: http://trove.nla.gov.au/general/australian-pictures-in-trove

• State Library digitised collections: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/digitised-collections

• DigiMorph (images of morphology of biological specimens): http://www.digimorph.org/

• Become a member of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) so

that you can access their eresources from school or home:

http://www.slv.vic.gov.au

• They provide access to an extensive collection of databases.

• Fill out the online registration form.

• You will be sent your card in the mail.

• You can then use your card details to logon to the databases

and eBooks you want.

You are able to customise your searching to suit your

personal learning requirements.

Examples include:

• Google Blogs: http://www.google.com.au/blogsearch?hl=en

• Twitter: microblogging site: https://twitter.com/

• Delicious: social bookmarking: https://delicious.com/

• Scoop.it! – content creator: http://www.scoop.it/

Good for basic information about topics, especially

popular culture.

Its value in this context is to “cherry pick” sites at

the end of the entry for further information.

Trove- National Library of Australia:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

Australian Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/

WolframAlpha – computational knowledge engine:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

There are many, many, many, many more.

Look for url’s ending in .edu, .gov, .org and avoid .com

Working out what you know and what you need

to know at the beginning of your research is half

the solution.

Be prepared to revisit all stages of research.

This is not a lineal process.

Consult with the teacher librarians to plan your

research.